A former Insys Therapeutics manager testified Feb. 22 that the pharmaceutical company duped insurers into paying for its addictive fentanyl spray, according to The Boston Globe.
Four things to know:
1. Elizabeth Gurrieri, who was a manager of reimbursement services for Insys, testified in Boston federal court that Insys employees learned how to swindle insurers into authorizing Subsys, a fentanyl spray, for patients.
2. Workers in the reimbursement center, which was dedicated to persuading insurers to pay for Subsys, used various tactics to trick payers, according to the report. For example, some workers told insurers that a patient had found other pain medications ineffective, despite having no knowledge of the patient's prescription history.
3. Employees also told insurers that patients had difficulty swallowing even if it wasn't true, as they knew payers would then be more likely to approve Subsys, Ms. Gurrieri testified. "We were misleading the insurance companies," she said, adding that Insys executives knew about the tactics.
4. Several Insys executives, including company founder John Kapoor and senior marketing executives, have been accused of bribing practitioners to prescribe Subsys to patients with millions of dollars in kickbacks, according to The Boston Globe.
For the full article from The Boston Globe, click here.